Colin Middleton RHA MBE (1910-1983) Farmhouse and Outbuildings, c.1958 Oil on canvas, 23 x 28cm (9 x 11'') Signed Provenance: From the estate of the late James Gibson This beautifully organised...

Colin Middleton RHA MBE (1910-1983) Farmhouse and Outbuildings, c.1958 Oil on canvas, 23 x 28cm (9 x 11'') Signed Provenance: From the estate of the late James Gibson This beautifully organised painting is typical of the intriguing period in the late 1950s that Colin Middleton spent in Portrush. Both natural and man-made forms are brought together as an architecturally conceived whole. The apparent solidity of form is belied by the small deliberate brushstrokes and the carefully controlled palette is built up from a full range of colour. Shapes are repeated across the canvas, such as the triangles in the gate, theee haystacks, the tree trunks and even the triangle of sky framed between the farmhouse roof and the top of the tree beside it. A series of intersecting diagonals lead the eye through towards the repeated horizontal rectangles of the buildings and the landscape fleetingly glimpsed behind. The scarecrow is almost lost within the compressed planes of the field and the garden and its subdued presence suggests something between the natural and the man-made. Painted in the years before he embraced a more abstract manner of working, the present work suggests Middleton's increasing formal interests but also his love of farmland and his environment as well as the mischievous wit that pervades all periods of his work. Dickon Hall, May 2013

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